"Peter, can you sense Mr. Kudo's location?"
"The dead are all on the second floor. As for Mr. Kudo, we'll need to go up and look for him. It's possible he isn't even here."
"Please don't let Mr. Kudo be dead, otherwise the higher-ups are going to pressure us again," Tenten prayed, hands clasped together.
The group then headed up to the second floor.
Just as they reached the top of the stairs, they saw four men's corpses lying in the hallway.
Tsurugi quickly ran over to examine the bodies and confirmed that they were all dead.
"Is Mr. Kudo among them?" Tenten asked, terrified of hearing the name "Kudo."
"Haven't found him yet. Let's go check the other rooms." Tsurugi and the others got up to search the remaining rooms, leaving only Tenten and Arata in the hallway.
Arata crouched down and flipped over a corpse that was lying face-down.
The body had varying degrees of lacerations.
The fatal wound was a clean slice across the throat, looking as if it had been made by an incredibly sharp blade.
However, upon closer inspection of the wound, Arata noticed a glimmering shard embedded within.
He gently pinched it out and held it between his fingers to examine it.
"Arata, did you find something?" Tenten asked curiously, looking at the shard between his fingers.
"It looks like glass."
"Why would there be glass in the wound?"
"It's possible that all the victims were killed by a weapon made of glass."
He couldn't draw a solid conclusion from just one body.
Arata crouched down beside another corpse and examined the wounds one by one.
Sure enough, he found more glass shards in the wounds.
It was the same for the next several corpses.
"I shouldn't be wrong. The killer used a glass weapon to murder them."
Having reached a conclusion, Arata stood up and tossed the glass shard he was holding onto the floor.
At that moment, Tsurugi and the others finished checking all the rooms on the second floor.
They gathered around Arata to report their findings.
"Thankfully, we didn't see Mr. Kudo. The dead are all security guards and male butlers," Peter said.
"And they're all men. The women in the house are unaccounted for," Tsurugi added.
"What about you? Did you find anything?" Tsurugi asked Denji, who was the last to arrive.
"I just went to the bathroom, and I found out they're out of toilet paper."
As soon as the words left his mouth, veins bulged on Tsurugi's forehead.
He and Peter had gone to carefully inspect the corpses, while this guy from Division 4 went to inspect whether the bathroom had toilet paper!
"Um, Arata found something," Tenten immediately interjected, noticing Tsurugi's expression turning sour.
"What did you find?"
"The victims were all killed by having their throats slit with glass. Most of the corpses still have glass shards in their wounds."
"It's really true!" Peter immediately crouched down to check, and it was exactly as Arata had said. "Captain was right to bring you along. You can notice details that we missed."
"What's the big deal? I saw them too, I just didn't say anything," Tsurugi scoffed, unwilling to let Arata take all the spotlight.
"Should we notify headquarters now?" Tenten asked.
"No rush. Having more people around will only ruin the crime scene. Take me to the place where Miss Kudo Ran disappeared first."
"I'll take you there." Tenten led Arata away, heading down to the first floor to the spot where Kudo Ran had vanished.
Since the second floor had already been checked, Tsurugi and Peter planned to head up to the third floor. Denji, however, stayed put.
"Why are you just standing there?"
"You guys go to the third floor. I still have some business on the second floor."
"Fine, just don't wander around. I've already given up on expecting you to find any clues." With that, Tsurugi and Peter went up to the third floor.
On the first floor, Arata and Tenten entered the area where Kudo Ran disappeared.
"This is where Kudo Ran vanished. We were all guarding the door outside at the time and didn't go in."
Unlike the previous two times, the disappearance didn't happen in a bedroom, but in Kudo Ran's private bathroom.
Entering the area, they first came to a changing room.
One of the lockers in the changing room was open. Inside hung the clothes Kudo Ran had been wearing at the time.
Next to the locker was a conspicuous full-length mirror, about two meters tall.
Beyond that was the bathing area. A single bath towel lay on the floor.
"Was the maid the first one to realize Kudo Ran was missing this time too?"
"No, it was us. We were right outside the bathroom door at the time."
"After hearing Kudo Ran scream, Tsurugi was the first one to rush in."
"What did he see?"
"Just that bath towel on the floor," Tenten pointed.
After hearing this final statement, Arata paced back and forth in the bathroom, deep in thought.
He replayed the scenes from all three crime scenes in his mind.
Soon, a certain object flashed through his thoughts.
Combining all the signs, Arata had already formed a preliminary conclusion in his mind.
Now, all that was left was to verify it.
"Ah!!"
Suddenly, a man's scream rang out.
Arata and Tenten rushed out of the room immediately.
"Stop right there!!" Tsurugi's voice echoed from the third floor.
"Stop him!" Tsurugi yelled to the two of them on the first floor.
Thump thump thump!!
A man with a panicked expression came sprinting down the stairs from the second floor.
Seeing this, Tenten pulled a kunai from her waist pouch and hurled it at the staircase.
The instant the kunai struck the stairs...
BOOM!!
A burst of fire erupted, accompanied by a loud explosion.
A large chunk of the staircase was instantly blown away.
The man was cut off at the landing between the second and first floors.
Watching the sudden explosion, Arata asked with genuine interest, "Are there explosive tags tied to your kunai?"
"What's an explosive tag?"
"A weapon used by ninjas."
"Did you forget that I contracted the Explosion Devil? My ability allows me to grant an object the power of an explosion. I chose kunai. Any kunai I throw will cause an explosion."
"Basically like throwing grenades," Arata summarized pointedly.
"Pretty much. But it's much more convenient than grenades."
While the two were discussing below, Tsurugi had already caught up to the man upstairs.
"Stop right there!!"
He lunged forward and pinned the man to the ground.
"Don't kill me!!" The man's face was etched with sheer terror.
"Don't be afraid. We are Public Safety Devil Hunters," Tsurugi said, gripping the man's neck, trying to calm him down.
"Public Safety... Devil Hunters..."
Hearing Tsurugi's identity, the man did calm down slightly.
"S-save me."
"Tell us exactly what happened."
"There's... there's a devil! It killed everyone here!"
"What kind of devil was it?"
"I didn't get a clear look. But it was terrifying! Please, just let me go!"
"Rest assured. With us here, we guarantee your safety."
Peter lowered himself down beside the man using a strand of spider web.
"Another one! A dev-il!"
"He is a Special Division Devil Hunter. Don't be afraid."
Seeing the commotion, Arata picked up Tenten and leaped up to the second floor.
Denji also hurried over in a panic.
Seeing so many people gathered, the man's emotions stabilized further.
"Are you all Public Safety Devil Hunters?"
"That's right. Tell us everything that happened."
"It went like this... I was cleaning Mr. Kudo's study on the third floor when I suddenly heard screams from outside. When I came out to check, I saw a devil murdering people."
"What kind of devil?" Arata asked again.
"I already told you, I didn't get a good look. I immediately ran back into the study and hid." The man's eyes darted away subconsciously.
Just as the group was surrounding the man and questioning him, the doorbell suddenly rang.
"Someone's back!"
"It might be Mr. Kudo."
After ringing a few times, the villa's automatic gates opened.
Kyuichi Kudo, accompanied by five civilian Devil Hunters, entered the villa.
The scene before him left Kyuichi Kudo utterly shocked.
The staircase on the first floor was blown to pieces.
A cleaner and the Devil Hunters who had been to his house before were standing upstairs.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Mr. Kudo, we are Public Safety Devil Hunters from Special Division 3. We were here previously regarding Miss Kudo Ran's disappearance." Tsurugi immediately put on a smiling face.
"Why are you in my house? And where are the rest of my servants and security guards?"
The man pinned down by Tsurugi struggled to his feet. He yelled in a panicked voice, "They're... they're all dead!"
"Dead!!"
"Yes, they're all dead! And these people killed them!"
The man suddenly grew agitated and pointed an accusing finger at Arata and the rest.
This left the group of investigators completely dumbfounded.
They came to find the killer, but ended up becoming the killers themselves.